Alior’s Main Shareholder Said to Pick UBS for Sale of 30% Stake

Alior Bank SA (ALR)’s biggest shareholder, Carlo Tassara SpA, is working with UBS AG to sell at least 30 percent of the bank that held Poland’s biggest initial public offering last year, three people familiar with the matter said.

UBS has until the end of 2013 to sell the stake in Alior, which owns Poland’s third-largest branch network, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the plan is private. UBS may invite bids next month, the people said. The bank has a market value of about 4.7 billion zloty ($1.54 billion).

“It is a fast-growing, innovative business, led by one of the strongest management teams in Poland,” with the third- largest network built in “just” four years, Armen Gasparyan and David Nangle, banking analysts at Renaissance Capital Ltd., said in a note to investors today.

Officials from Tassara weren’t immediately available for comment. Alior referred questions to Tassara. UBS spokeswoman Stephanie Aneto declined to comment.

Poland has been one of the most active markets in Europe for deals involving banks and insurers in the last three years. Spain’s Banco Santander SA acquired Bank Zachodni WBK SA and Kredyt Bank SA. Austria’s Raiffeisen bought Polbank SA. German insurer Talanx AG purchased Towarzystwo Ubezpieczen i Reasekuracji Warta SA.

Less than a week ago, the Polish government sold a $1.7 billion stake, or 12.2 percent, in PKO Bank Polski SA, the country’s largest lender. UniCredit SpA (UCG), Italy’s largest bank, is selling as much as 9.1 percent of its Polish unit, Bank Pekao SA. (PEO)

Potential Interest

Alior has advanced 30 percent to 74.34 zloty in Warsaw trading since going public in December.

The Alior stake may attract bids from Vienna-based Erste Group Bank AG (EBS), BNP Paribas SA of Paris or Milan-based Intesa Sanpaolo SpA, Marta Czajkowska-Baldyga, an analyst at KBC Group NV, said by phone from Warsaw. BNP and Intesa tried to buy a bank in Poland two years ago and were among bidders for Bank Zachodni.

Erste spokesman Michael Mauritz declined to comment when asked if the bank would be interested in the stake. A BNP Paribas official declined to comment.

Sberbank was interested in entering Poland and was in talks to buy an Alior Bank stake from Tassara, Il Sole 24 Ore reported on Dec. 30, without saying how it obtained the information.

To contact the reporters on this story: Konrad Krasuski in Warsaw at kkrasuski@bloomberg.net; Boris Groendahl in Vienna at bgroendahl@bloomberg.net; Marta Waldoch in Warsaw at mwaldoch@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Frank Connelly at fconnelly@bloomberg.net